IC engine design, bio-fuels, Hybrid EV powertrain design

La massimizzazione dell’efficienza globale delle macchine è un tema di sempre maggiore centralità che interessa in particolare la progettazione dei propulsori e la domanda di sistemi ad elevata efficienza è in costante aumento in ogni settore. Inoltre, gli standard EURO/TIER per la riduzione delle emissioni inquinanti dei veicoli stradali/agricoli rispettivamente, impongono un miglioramento dell’efficienza sia dei motori, sia delle trasmissioni. Per questo motivo, le risorse dedicate alla ricerca in tale ambito sono in continuo aumento.


The maximization of the machines global efficiency is a theme of ever-increasing centrality that affects the design of the engines in particular, and the demand for high-efficiency systems is constantly increasing in every sector. Furthermore, the EURO / TIER standards for the reduction of polluting emissions of road/agricultural vehicles respectively, require an improvement in the efficiency of both engines and transmissions. For this reason, the resources dedicated to the research in this field are constantly increasing.

Addressing the contemporary waste management is seeing a shift towards energy production while managing waste sustainably. Consequently, waste treatment through gasification is slowly taking over the waste incineration with multiple benefits, including simultaneous waste management and energy production while reducing landfill volumes and displacing conventional fossil fuels. Only in the UK, there are around 14 commercial plants built to operate on gasification technology. These include fixed bed and fluidized bed gasification reactors. Ultra-clean tar free gasification of waste is now the best available technique and has experienced a significant shift from two-stage gasification and combustion towards a one-stage system for gasification and syngas cleaning. Nowadays in gasification sector, more companies are developing commercial plants with tar cracking and syngas cleaning. Moreover, gasification can be a practical scheme when applying ultra-clean syngas for a gas turbine with heat recovery by steam cycle for district heating and cooling (DHC) systems. This chapter aims to examine the recent trends in gasification-based waste-to-energy technologies. Furthermore, types of gasification technologies, their challenges and future perspectives in various applications are highlighted in detail.

Biogas potential was explored for animal manure, wheat straw, food waste and rice straw. Batch experiments were performed at a laboratory scale using potential biomethane assays (BMP) for a period of 50 days. The biogas yield was observed higher when using rice straw (0.40 m3/kg VSadded) as a substrate, as compared to wheat straw (0.33 m3/kg VSadded) and animal manure (0.30 m3/kg VSadded) substrates. Around 10% of biogas was produced in the initial phase of 4 days for manure, wheat straw, and rice straw feedstocks. During the middle phase of 30 days for these feedstocks, 65 – 80% of biogas was produced. Less than 20% of biogas was produced during the final phase of last 16 days of the experiment. The biogas production from food waste was found lowest (0.02 m3/kg VSadded) among all substrates. Therefore, the anaerobic digestion (AD) of both food waste and animal manure is more suited in co-digestion fashion than mono-digestion.

District heating networks are commonly addressed in the literature as one of the most effective solutions for decreasing the greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector. These systems require high investments which are returned through the heat sales. Due to the changed climate conditions and building renovation policies, heat demand in the future could decrease, prolonging the investment return period. The main scope of this paper is to assess the feasibility of using the heat demand – outdoor temperature function for heat demand forecast. The district of Alvalade, located in Lisbon (Portugal), was used as a case study. The district is consisted of 665 buildings that vary in both construction period and typology. Three weather scenarios (low, medium, high) and three district renovation scenarios were developed (shallow, intermediate, deep). To estimate the error, obtained heat demand values were compared with results from a dynamic heat demand model, previously developed and validated by the authors. The results showed that when only weather change is considered, the margin of error could be acceptable for some applications (the error in annual demand was lower than 20% for all weather scenarios considered). However, after introducing renovation scenarios, the error value increased up to 59.5% (depending on the weather and renovation scenarios combination considered). The value of slope coefficient increased on average within the range of 3.8% up to 8% per decade, that corresponds to the decrease in the number of heating hours of 22-139h during the heating season (depending on the combination of weather and renovation scenarios considered). On the other hand, function intercept increased for 7.8-12.7% per decade (depending on the coupled scenarios). The values suggested could be used to modify the function parameters for the scenarios considered, and improve the accuracy of heat demand estimations. Abstract Pulp mills without black liquor recovery cycle could play a major role in employing black liquor gasification (BLG) to produce transport fuels. In conventional chemical pulp mills, black liquor is burnt in recovery boilers to generate steam and electricity to meet energy demands. The inorganic chemicals are reused for the digestion process. However, the energy content and inorganic chemicals are not recovered in small scale pulp mills especially in the developing countries which do not employ recovery cycle. This study investigates the potential of synthetic natural gas (SNG) production by integrating BLG island with a reference pulp mill without chemical recovery cycle. The improvements in overall energy efficiency are evaluated using performance indicators such as biofuel production potential, integrated system's efficiency, and energy ratios. The oxygen-blown circulating fluidized bed (CFB) gasification with direct causticization is integrated with reference pulp mill. The results showed considerable SNG production without external biomass import. However to compensate total electricity deficit, the electricity will be imported from the grid. There is a substantial CO 2 abatement potential of combining CO 2 capture using seloxol absorption, and CO 2 mitigation from SNG by replacing gasoline.

The performance of a 118-kW tractor fuelled by pure biodiesel was monitored during a long-term field experiment with approximately 800 h of engine function. The objective was to demonstrate that B100, a pure biodiesel fuel, is a viable alternative to traditional diesel oil in terms of long-term mechanical reliability. A bench test on the new engine, performed by attaching a test stand to the power take-off of the tractor, showed an expected reduction in power (-9%) and torque (-7%) and an increase in specific consumption (+13%) when biodiesel was used as a complete substitute to diesel oil. Furthermore, with the same setup, the exhaust gas had a Bosch smoke index equal to 50% of the value for the same engine fuelled with diesel oil. After these initial tests, the tractor was set up for normal field operations, in which both the engine curves and lubricant quality were periodically monitored. These surveys indicated no significant reduction in engine performance; however, the lubricant was consequently diluted and contaminated by biodiesel, which caused the lubricant properties to considerably worsen. However, on the basis of the chemical-physical analysis, reducing the oil change interval from 200 h (manufacturer's indications for the engine when operating with diesel oil) to 100 h would compensate for this progressive quality decline. At the end of the trials, the engine was disassembled to check the condition of its components; wear and lacquer-like coating phenomena were observed, and their levels were acceptable. The obtained results demonstrated that B100 can effectively substitute for diesel oil in a standard compression-ignition engine: the power change is not perceptible during normal operation of a tractor, and no particular problem will arise in the engine during its life if the lubricant is changed every 100 h.

Bio-electrochemical degradation of pentachlorophenol was carried out in single as well as dual chambered microbial fuel cell (MFC) with simultaneous production of electricity. The maximum cell potential was recorded to be 787 and 1021 mV in single and dual chambered systems respectively. The results presented nearly 66 and 89% COD removal in single and dual chambered systems with corresponding power densities of 872.7 and 1468.85 mW m À2 respectively. The highest coulombic efficiency for single and dual chambered counterparts was found to be 33.9% and 58.55%. GC-MS data revealed that pentachlorophenol was more effectively degraded under aerobic conditions in dual-chambered MFC. Real-time polymerase chain reaction showed the dominance of exoelectrogenic Geobacter in the two reactor systems with a slightly higher concentration in the dual-chambered system. The findings of this work suggested that the aerobic treatment of pentachlorophenol in cathodic compartment of dual chambered MFC is better than its anaerobic treatment in single chambered MFC in terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal and output power density.

District heating networks are commonly addressed in the literature as one of the most effective solutions for decreasing the greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector. These systems require high investments which are returned through the heat sales. Due to the changed climate conditions and building renovation policies, heat demand in the future could decrease, prolonging the investment return period. The main scope of this paper is to assess the feasibility of using the heat demand – outdoor temperature function for heat demand forecast. The district of Alvalade, located in Lisbon (Portugal), was used as a case study. The district is consisted of 665 buildings that vary in both construction period and typology. Three weather scenarios (low, medium, high) and three district renovation scenarios were developed (shallow, intermediate, deep). To estimate the error, obtained heat demand values were compared with results from a dynamic heat demand model, previously developed and validated by the authors. The results showed that when only weather change is considered, the margin of error could be acceptable for some applications (the error in annual demand was lower than 20% for all weather scenarios considered). However, after introducing renovation scenarios, the error value increased up to 59.5% (depending on the weather and renovation scenarios combination considered). The value of slope coefficient increased on average within the range of 3.8% up to 8% per decade, that corresponds to the decrease in the number of heating hours of 22-139h during the heating season (depending on the combination of weather and renovation scenarios considered). On the other hand, function intercept increased for 7.8-12.7% per decade (depending on the coupled scenarios). The values suggested could be used to modify the function parameters for the scenarios considered, and improve the accuracy of heat demand estimations. Abstract The fossil fuels accomplish almost 80% of the world energy needs. The ever increasing exploitation of fossil fuels has led to environmental pollution, global climate change and health problems to living beings. Hence to meet the needs of the future energy and to mitigate the environmental pollution, it is critical to look for the alternate fuels. Global energy infrastructure in the future is believed to be accomplished by the energy generated from the low-cost renewable resources. Algae biomass has emerged as a promising biofuel source, as microalgae-based biofuels are biodegradable, renewable, and eco-friendly in comparison to fossil driven fuels. This study aims to examine the importance of microalgae as an alternative renewable energy source and evaluate the key challenges in the production of microalgae biofuel.